Can a Geriatric Germany Save Europe?

As Greece lurches on the precipice of default on its sovereign debt, a default that could bring down banks across Europe and precipitate a global financial panic, a consensus is building that there is but one way out.

First, a structured default on the Greek debt, giving creditors a major haircut, but compensating them with eurobonds of half the face value of the Greek bonds, guaranteed by the European Central Bank.

Second, a huge new European Financial Stabilization Facility of trillions of euros to recapitalize stricken banks and buy up the sovereign debt of Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Spain, should private investors flee their bonds.

Such a solution, however, depends upon Germany, the richest nation in Europe and major contributor to the ECB.

Hard-money Germans, however, do not relish bailing out the deadbeat nations of Club Med who have more generous welfare states than their own.

Politically, it may not be possible to cajole or coerce the Germans, indefinitely, into saving the eurozone, the collapse of which could bring on a depression and bring down the European Union itself.

There is another reason the European Monetary Union and EU may be headed for the boneyard: demography.

Looking over the 2008 World Population Prospects from the United Nations’ Department of Economic and Social Affairs, one finds that the nation which is to carry Europe back to solvency is aging, shrinking and dying.

Every decade of this century, Germany will become less able to sustain its dynamism, let alone carry the continent.

Consider. In 2010, there were 82 million Germans. Fully 26 percent were 60 years of age or older; 20 percent were 65 or older; 5 percent were 80 or older.

Now, fast forward to 2050.

Between 2010 and mid-century, 12 million Germans will disappear. In 2050, Germany will be a nation of 70 million, whose median age will have risen from 44 today to 51. And the life expectancy of all Germans will rise from today’s 80 years to 84.

The average German may enjoy four more years of life, but he or she will also require four more years of social security and health care provided by the taxpaying public. And that taxpaying public is also going to shrink.

By 2050, the percentage of Germans over 60 will have risen from 26 to nearly 40 percent. The percentage 65 and over will have risen from 20.5 to 32.5 percent, and the share over 80 will have tripled from the present 5 percent of the population to 14 percent.

By 2050, one in three Germans will be 65 or over, and one in seven will be 80 or over. That is a lot of old-timers for working Germans, whose numbers and share of the population will have been dramatically reduced, to support.

Moreover, the percentage of German women in the childbearing ages of 15 to 49 will have fallen from today’s 45 percent to 34 percent, guaranteeing a continuous decline in the German population for the rest of the century.

There is not a single year between 1970 and 2050 where Germany’s birth rate even approaches the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. By mid-century, Germany will have been below zero population growth for 80 years. This is a nation slowly taking its leave of this world.

For Club Med to be rescued, the shrinking German labor force will have to carry an ever-expanding cohort of German retirees and aged, as well as growing numbers of retired and aged of the debt-ridden south of Europe.

Consider the nation closet to default: Greece.

In 1950, nearly half of Greece’s population was 24 or younger. In 2050, less than one-fourth of all Greeks will be 24 or younger.

Today, one-fourth of all Greeks are 60 or older. But in 2050, it will be nearly 38 percent. Less than 4 percent of Greeks are 80 or over today. By 2050, that will have tripled to almost 11 percent.

Italy, a country of 60 million, is on schedule to lose 3 million people by 2050. The share of Italy’s population 65 or over will go from one-fifth today to one-third by mid-century.

Italians over 80 will double from 6 percent today to 13 percent in 2050. Life expectancy will rise by four years to close to 86.

Across Europe, not one nation has a birth rate sufficient to replace its native-born population. The share that is of working age is shriveling, while the share that is eligible for state-funded pensions, social security and health care is growing.

And it is the Germans who are leading Europe into retirement centers, assisted living facilities and nursing homes.

Europe needs more young workers to maintain the dynamism of the continent and make good on all promises made to her people.

To the south, the exploding Muslim populations of the Maghreb and the Middle East appear ready to come and help out.

“This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper.”

Patrick J. Buchanan is a TAC founding editorand the author, most recently, of Suicide of a Superpower. Copyright 2011 Creators.com.

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16 Responses to Can a Geriatric Germany Save Europe?

Well prospects for Germany and much of Europe may indeed be rather dire. But hasn’t Mr Buchanan already written almost exactly the same piece (“The West is dying; the Muslims are going to take over” etc.) countless times before? Since there isn’t anything new and not even a hint at possible solutions I fail to see the point of this article.

Pat is just saying to quit the whimpering and start banging. White guys all over the world better start banging their babes and knocking them up if they want their Social Security welfare checks to be signed by a white guy. You’ll know the jig is up when PBS pulls the Lawrence Welk Polkapalooza and replaces it with Nigerian Hip Hop.

German reader, I think the point is that instead of Germany bailing out and risking its economy for Greece, there are far bigger problems that Germany should focus on. Protecting the Euro, Greece and the EU are pointless if Germany does not honestly address the demographic, because all the other problems are pretty much pointless if it is not addressed.

I know it is impolite to raise the question whether young Muslims will honour the pensions of old Germans, but think about it, why would they and why should they ?

“German reader, I think the point is that instead of Germany bailing out and risking its economy for Greece, there are far bigger problems that Germany should focus on. Protecting the Euro, Greece and the EU are pointless if Germany does not honestly address the demographic, because all the other problems are pretty much pointless if it is not addressed.

I know it is impolite to raise the question whether young Muslims will honour the pensions of old Germans, but think about it, why would they and why should they ?”

You’ve misunderstood me; in fact I largely agree with your asessment that the demographic problem is very grave and ultimately much more important than most of the topics dominating political discourse. Personally I find the demographic prospects for Europe rather depressing and think it’s very disturbing that this issue is rather low on the agenda of most politicians. While natalist policies may ultimately not be successful (after all you can’t force people to have children), they should be tried – or at the very least there should be intense debate about them. Unfortunately the majority of Europe’s political, academic and media elites seems to disagree and regard the demographic collapse of their own societies with equanimity (or even go so far as to consider it a good thing).
So I don’t disagree with Mr Buchanan’s basic analysis; it’s just that he never gives the merest hint as to what could be done about this problem and seems to take a strange delight in prophesying the downfall of the West.

Every single statistic in this article is a deceptive lie. All that is happening is that the death rate is falling and average ages rise across the board. Big deal. Healthier people live longer. Quit whining and get back to work.

Europe rolled out the welcome mat to immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East 40 years ago. This has not saved (and will not save) Europe’s elderly. Massive Third World immigration has caused far more economic and social problems than it has solved. Even more than the reproductive deficit, it has proven to be a recipe for national suicide for every nation that has tried it. When the Western European peoples disappear, so will Western Civilization.

Had Edmond Burke risen fro death he would have been very much surprised how much he was right in certain regards
Family as he had known has been dismantled long since
the grand march of feminism passed leaving free individuals of weaker sex but no children to be seen around
The void is to be filled with citizens of alien cultures changing irrevocably world that once existed and will never be again

“Every single statistic in this article is a deceptive lie. All that is happening is that the death rate is falling and average ages rise across the board. Big deal. Healthier people live longer. Quit whining and get back to work.”

Long term, the prospects for distinct “races”, as we know them today, are pretty poor. This is just going to speed up the day when there won’t be any “races” as such.

That doesn’t mean the “dawning of the Age of Aquarius” —- in maybe 300 years it will be the Afro-Asians against the Euro-Asians, and a “mixed marrige” will involve the joining together of Mako Jones-Kurasawa-Kenyatta and Steven Kirolenko-Chen-Morris.

Mr. Buchanan’s phrase “deadbeat nations” is rather unfortunate in that it merely parrots the north-south (or perhaps Protestant-Catholic/Orthodox) intra-European racism that has colored the debate on the “PIIGS” and their financial problems.

Identifying the birth dearth in Europe as a problem is correct, but its not enough to stop there. The larger point that should be made is that our civilization has evolved to the point of unsustainability culturally, socially, and even biologically–a life beyond measure in all its aspects.

Statist natalist policies, although well intentioned, do not work simply because the modern state is incapable historically of affecting cultural change in the positive direction, only in the negative. A good part of Greece’s overgenerous welfare state, for example, is devoted to natalist measures, subsidies, and programs–measures that failed.

Real communities such as the Church, I believe, represent the only means for an ordered response, that can lead the counter-revolutinary charge. Yes, a counter-revolutionary return to tradition; this is precisely what it would take.

I believe that the demographic argument is all bunk, a creation by the perpetual “growth” school. All of Europe, not only Germany, has to return to sustainable population levels and reduce the size of its cancerous cities. The economic imigrants are because of the myth perpetuated by the “growth” loby, not that they particularly wish to leave the land and culture that they were born to.

Yes, we’ve been hearing these prophecies of doom for quite some time, and the day of reckoning keeps getting pushed uout another generation into the future.
The reality is that Europe still has (and will continue to have) far more people living in it than lived there a mere century ago. With a much smaller population than it will have for many generations (assuming current trends continue, which is unlikely) the Europeans founded empires across the globe and populated three entire continents.
Europe may be doomed for all I know, but it isn’t demographics that wll cause it.

Eso – - Yes, a stable population in Europe is a very good thing. And cities do not benefit from growing from a population of one million to ten million, or twenty, merely from the growth of the population. China, India and other countries appear to have no choice but to have numberous gigantic cities. Europe can avoid this situation, and enjoy its avoidance.

JonF – - Europe has never been richer than it is today. Books were cooked for a number of years, making it appear there was more wealth about than was actually the case.
Compare the rattty mess that obtains with many American cities and towns, with what obtains in Europe.

It sounds as if it is bad thing that European population has not been growing. I truly believe that Michael Ruppert’s argument in “Colllapse” is correct, that, once oil is used up, 5/6 of the world’s population will be unsupportable and have to go. The poor countries that have high population growth rate will suffer the most as peak oil hits. Now, then, back to those rich European nations which have no population growth, and where people are living longer and longer. You shouldn’t encourage them to have more babies, in view of peak oil. The solution to their problem is simply to raise minimum age for retirement, adjusting it to increase of life expectancy so that the working young will always have the same burden to support.